Will eSIM cards work with 5th Gen iPads?

No. You cannot use an eSIM with iPad5; the iPad5 pre-dates eSIM support.

eSIMs are supported by all recent WiFi+Cellular models of iPad - support for eSIM being introduced with iPad7, iPad Air3, iPad Pro 11”, iPad Pro 12.9” (third generation and later).

You can check which models of iPad support AppleSIM and eSIM in the individual iPad specifications pages - and within the iPad comparison table:

iPad - Compare Models - Apple

No iPads have any built-in eSIMs.

If you own an iPad that is both a WiFi AND cellular data model, you would need to get a normal SIM card from a cellular service carrier/provider and to use the SIM card, you will need to have the cellular service activate the SIM and you would be charged a monthly data/charge rate to use cellular data, through a cellular service carrier, on your WiFi and cellular data model iPad.

Best of Luck to You!

My wife owns a WiFi/cellular data iPad 8th gen with a T-Mobile data SIM card.

I'll check her 8th gen iPad for the eSIM support. Never knew about this one.

I bought this iPad for her quite awhile, ago.

I know all our recent iPhones have this eSIM feature.

Yup!

Found it!

Never knew newer iPad models had support for eSIM.

Great! I think.